A Conversation with Elizabeth
1999
Hello

From:          LMixson
To:            Elizabeth (E-mail)
Sent:          Thursday, October 14, 1999 8:49 AM
Subject:       Hello
 
Just a note to say hello.  Not much going on with me, work as usual.  I did spend yesterday morning at the Administrative Office of the US Courts in a technical briefing of our company's capabilities.  Racquetball and Yoga as usual.  It's supposed to get into the 30's tonight.  I plan to go a friend's place this weekend to get some firewood.  He has 17 acres mostly wooded and has a few downed trees so I go out their each year and get firewood.  Hope you are OK.
 
Larry

I did go get firewood that weekend. The friend was Norm from work who was probably ten years older than me. Norm was one of the nicest guys I have ever known. Norm had several acres in the country outside of Leesburg about 45 minutes from where I lived.  He had given me instructions to his place, from Leesburg, go so many miles on south on highway 15, turn on the dirt road just past an old gas station, travel a couple miles down the dirt road, look for the yellow mailbox then turn right when you see the cow.  GPS on the phone didn’t exist at the time but his instructions were good, even the cow.  Norm’s driveway was hard packed snow, so I turned on the 4-wheel drive on my Explorer and drove the ¾ mile driveway though the woods covered in snow to his house.  Upon pulling up in front of his house, Norm came out to greet me, put his chainsaw in the back of my Explorer and pointed to a path leading from his yard into the woods, go down there, he said. The path still had 12 to 14 inches of fresh snow and I had never driven in such but I put the Explorer in 4-wheel low gear and set off.  I thought I did pretty well driving off road in snow for the first time and about a quarter mile came upon a fallen tree. Norm started up the chain saw and started cutting the downed tree into firewood sized logs which then I split into pieces using my splitting axe. After about an hour I had the back of the Explorer filled up and we headed back to Norm’s house where he invited me in.  Norm had a most interesting house, built completely by him and his wife. It was mostly heated passively from large, south facing windows but also had a huge fireplace in the middle which Norm explained, provided a large thermal mass.  I admired Norm and how he lived, I had always dreamed about building my own house in the country.

Re: Hello